Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly offered to host a teleconference between US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a bid to ease tensions and avert a potentially major American military strike on Iran.

Officials who spoke to Middle East Eye (MEE) were said on January 29 to have confirmed the offer to mediate via a video link.

When Erdogan spoke on the phone with Trump on January 26, he called on the US leader to prioritise diplomacy in the standoff with Iran. MEE reported an official as saying that Trump expressed interest in the teleconference initiative, but Pezeshkian was yet to respond to the offer.

To conservative Iranian diplomats, such high-wire diplomacy might not appeal.

MEE said Ankara insiders believed that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, due to visit Istanbul on January 30 for talks with Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, may deliver Tehran’s response to Erdogan’s proposal to mediate in such a fashion.Top of Form

A US naval strike group has arrived in the Middle East. As it sailed towards Iran, Trump warned it was "ready, willing and able" to hit the Iranians "if necessary".

Ankara takes the line that it opposes any foreign intervention in Iran. Fidan has proposed that the US and Iran separate the various issues they are in disagreement over prior to resolving them gradually, “file by file”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Fidan said: “It is wrong to attack Iran. It is wrong to start the war again. Iran is ready to negotiate in the nuclear file.”

Asked by AFP about the approach to talks suggested by Fidan, Serhan Afacan, director of IRAM, the Ankara-based Centre for Iranian Studies, said: "If Trump invites the Iranians to reach a deal on the nuclear file, they are going to say yes. But if you put all of the issues in the same basket, that will be impossible.

"For now, the ballistic missile programme remains a red line, as it sits at the core of Iran’s defence architecture.

"Compromise is not impossible, but it would only come after long rounds of negotiations and if Tehran’s security concerns – especially vis-a-vis the US and Israel – are substantially addressed."

He added: "It all depends on what President Trump is going to say: if he says 'I'm not going to attack Iran' we should expect to see negotiations in a matter of weeks."

Turkey is, meanwhile, assessing what additional security measures it should implement along its 500-kilometre (310-mile) border with Iran if a US military attack destabilises the country, senior Turkish officials have briefed AFP.

Much of the frontier is secured by a wall, but "it has proven insufficient," the news service cited a Turkish official as saying.

Ankara has so far avoided the term "buffer zone" in discussing how to beef up the frontier. But it could deploy more troops and expand technological surveillance systems.

In an preventive effort to protect themselves from Iranian reprisals in the event of a US attack, most Gulf states have stated that they will not allow their airspace or territory to be used by the American armed forces in striking Iran.

Separately, Turkish pro-government newspaper Sabah reported on January 28 that Turkish security forces arrested a cell working for Iranian intelligence that made an effort to spy on the US airbase at Incirlik, located near the southern Turkish Mediterranean coast.